[Kevin Camp]

do you need to keep the render at 2fps?

you can drop a 2fps image sequence into a 29.97 comp (or any other frame rate). playback will still look like 2fps (with just a bunch of duplicate frames). you should also be able to simply change the frame rate of your current comp to the same effect.

alternately, you should be able to set the render settings for your current comp to a higher frame rate.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i haven’t tried this, but i think if you time stretch the footage 150% and turn off frame blending it will do what you are looking for.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

something like this would work for position:

target1 = thisComp.layer("Null 1");
target2 = thisComp.layer("Null 2");
startT = 5; // value in seconds
morphDur = 10; // value in frames

endT = startT+(morphDur*thisComp.frameDuration);
if (time < startT) target1.position;
else if (time > endT) target2.position;
else linear(time,startT,endT,target1.position,target2.position);

change target variables to your ‘parent’ layers, set the start time value and morph duration as needed.

if you needed other properties, like rotation, etc, to be linked, then you’d need to modify the expression for each property needed.

to ease between parents change ‘linear’ to ‘ease’ in the last line

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i’d start by setting the ambient light color to a blue from the background image that you are trying to mimic.

to simulate the moonlight i’d try a parallel light source, low intensity, maybe white or light blue.

alternately, you could try color adjustment effect… color balance would allow you to adjust the shadow and midtone values separate from the highlights, allowing you to shift the darker values to blue. this method may work better if you have the 3d city as a nested comp with the city background as a separate layer.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you may be able to do what you are looking for with 2 instances of the stroke effect.

if you create a mask path on a layer, add the stroke effect and set the paint style to ‘on transparent’ (set the size and color as desired).

then duplicate that stroke effect on the same layer, but change the color and set the style to ‘on original’. now if the change the start or end values of the second stroke effect, it should give you two colors on the same path.

does that do what you need?

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

Hi Davide, sorry in the delay for replying to your post, deadlines get in the way of fun…

But to the point, if your logo is editable text (typed in ae, or converted from a photoshop text layer), it can be very easy to manipulate individual characters to aid in a reveal.

After Effects has many text animation presets that can be a good basis for text reveals.

here’s an example that I started with the text animation preset called typewriter. I add that from the effects & presets palette (presets>text>animate in>typewriter).

https://reels.creativecow.net/film/20793

by default, typewriter types each letter on one at a time. if you twirl down the text layer properties to text.animator 1>range selector 1>advanced, you can modify those properties to get something a little more interesting.

in this case, i changed the smoothness to 100% so each letter will fade in, and set random order to on, so the characters reveal randomly rather than in order.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

i think i’d push the cryptic aspect further.

i like the horizontal line that forms from the intersection of the type. what if you cropped the logo down to just that line and had those horizontal lines start to form first, so it starts to look like a series of dashes and dots.

then once that line is formed, the wipe reveals the rest of the logo and at that point the top half drops opacity to make the title more readable.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

if you want all the photos to start scattered at random positions and then move to a final position, then an expression like this could work.

w = 1280;
h = 720;
dur = 10; // value in seconds

seedRandom(index,true);
startPos = random([0,0],[w,h]);
endPos = value;
ease(time,0,dur,startPos,endPos);

define the w and h values as needed, they define the width and height of the area that will be used to set the initial random position (with current values the layer will be placed randomly within a 1280×720 rectangle)

dur is the number of seconds you want the layer to move from the random position to the final position.

what i’d do first is set all your layers up in the final arrangement, then copy/paste this expression into the position property of one of them.

set the w, h and dur values as needed, then select that layer’s position property, choose edit>copy expression only, select the rest of the layers and choose paste. all the layers should move from a random position to their final position over the duration that you set in the expression.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

[Christopher Sean] “I suppose the logic would be to set a rotation from a to b and define b as a random number”

Yep, that’s what you want to do. Here’s one way to do it:
seedRandom(index,true);
r = random(-25,25);
if (numKeys == 2)
linear(time-key(1).time,0,key(2).time,key(1).value,r);
else
value;
you hadn’t mentioned timing, so i set it up to use to keyframes to allow you to define the timing with keys (which is typically how i’d do it anyway).

so the expression looks for keyframes, you need two to define the start point and the end point. the expression will use the value of the first keyframe as the start value, so set that to zero, the value of the second keyframe does not matter, since it will be replaced by the random value, it only uses it’s placement for timing.

the linear() function just interpolates the time between the two keyframes to the rotation values. if you wanted to ease between the keyframes, you can change linear() to ease() — note changing the keyframe interpolation will not effect the animation, since the interpolation of the expression will override that of the keyframes.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

you should be able to find many font sites that have it if you search the web. if you’re lucky you’ll find a free version available.

after downloading it, simply install it on the system that is running ae, and it should be available in the font list. if not try restarting ae.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW